Member Info for RobNic

Anyone worked out if there are any authorities out there to express concerns / displeasure with either HALO management (especially Cochrane who continuously lied and failed to communicate with investors), the NOMAD (who seemed to walk away for unclear reasons to allow HALO to act autonomously), AIM itself (for clearly not keeping an eye on HALO and letting them drag out their bankruptcy to allow Cochrane to continue to fund his lifestyle), the Administrators (who seemed to have progressed no consequences to Cochrane whatsoever, or recovered any funds to shareholders), or anyone else who one would think should be held responsible for the debacle seemingly engineered by Cochrane to steal shareholder's money? Appears there is little consequences to being either crooked or incompetent in AIM - seems HALO is a poster child (or at least alcoholic delinquent) for the risks of investing on AIM.

Flundra, I agree - the Administrators seemed to do the bare minimum. Reflects badly on AIM, makes them look like a banana republic stock market - no protection against crooks - actually appears like the market is in cahoots with shady investors - not a good look.

Wellsite, I signed up to Ghost's list. I think he tried hard on behalf of the average shareholder, unlike people like Anto who continued to bleat that Cochran was a genius, attack anyone who said otherwise and preach that all would be fantastic in the future - right up to the end.

For Ghost to be an incarnation of Cochran, Cochran would indeed have to be a genius to create and maintain such a persona. Cochran could though pretend to be Anto, as Anto was such a caricature, with seemingly exaggerated terrible grammar, continuous anger & insults, and whacky positions - all doable by Cochran. I'd say 60% chance Cochran was Anto, 0.1% he was Ghost!

I always suspected that Anto was Cochran, as Anto hero-worshipped Cochran and would post such troll-like rubbish, seemingly to deflect attention off Cochran. My real question is whether Cochran was incompetent or a crook. I suspect the latter.

Yes, Andrew Cochran is a crook.

Here is a collection of some of the more prescient posts over the years - well done to those!

14 April ‘21; Easyinvestor
On this one investors taken for mugs and treated with contempt. Our only hope is to take HNL cochran to task at a hopefully in person AGM this year and get firm date for relist whether market conditions are good, bad, or just plain ugly no excuses

20 Feb ‘21; MTSparky
I guess it comes down to the integrity of Andrew Cochran in the end.

3 Feb ‘21; BBaggins
Why cant they just say 'we're not relisting and we're keeping all your money' ?

2 Feb ‘21; Tarquoid
6p looks good now eh?

26 Sept ‘20; Luckylurker
just checking in & nothing has changed good to see Cochran still stringing the usual lot along! See you next year !

June ‘20; RobNic
Investors have a nice warm feeling that we have paid the salaries etc for Cochrane and his cronies. People need to wake up and realise they have no intention to re-list, and never had. My prediction is they will either drain the company down or sell, with a sale structure that gives very little of the sale proceeds to the investors...

The AIM regulators and the Administrators have not covered themselves in glory. They have done nothing for us. I would not invest in AIM again having seen how this debacle has turned out.

Ghost - thanks for all your efforts and commentary over the years. You tried hard to get Cochran bought to account, but many of the larger shareholders didn’t want to join. You at least can say “I told you so”, but that is not much consolation… Not blaming them, understandable that they wanted to give Cochran a chance to communicate and be a competent & honourable CEO/Chairman – which he abjectly failed to do. He is a disgrace, a conman.

Agree that is a likely outcome. Amazed that the press aren't picking this up as a clear example as to how AIM is fundamentally flawed, as it shows a crook can deliberately getting his company de-listed so he is then free to run it into the ground, whilst sucking it dry, with no thought to shareholders. You would think this kind of debacle would cause some kind material negative change to the perceived risk of investing in AIM, and so the powers above would want to at least give the appearance of wanting to penalise fraudsters who damage the perception of AIM stocks, especially when they aren't even British...

jscriven,
Yes, would recommend you send in your concerns to the Administrators. I think the additional point raised/implied in posts by Glenmorangie/Olderandwiser is also likely correct, ie that Cochran has deliberately pushed HALO into Administration for his own gain. That point / suspicion is also worth pursuing with the Administrators.

The concern is that the game Cochran has played here is basically this -
- Cochran lent some money to HALO in 2016 (see 2017 Annual Report on pages 44 (section 9 - Group Restructuring) and 60 - Section 27; the latter mentions that in 2016 Cochran funded Vermeer GBP 46,257 for "working capital needs".) I am unclear whether that is the extend of him acting as a creditor. I believe he will try to add to the list of things he is a creditor for.
- Since de-listing (which he may have engineered deliberately) he has worked (with PR company Camarco in cahoots, facilitating the effort) to keep shareholders in the dark while he has kept drawing his salary (and Camarco's fees being paid) - worth over one million GBP to Cochran since delisting.
- Cochran has driven the company into the ground (not clear if that is incompetence or negligence, or both) and at some point he realised that the value of his 8.6% equity was worth less than recovering his loan (and his continued salary)
- Possibly with pressure from the other main investors (speculation), he agreed to put the company into Administration once he felt he had drawn out getting his salary for as long as possible, to at least get back his loan (with whatever terms that came with, ie interest?), likely leaving Shareholders with nothing once creditors are paid in full...
- So basically he has denied Shareholders the right to recover their investment in favour of him drawing down a salary - and recover his personal loan - without obviously informing or asking the Shareholders what they think about that.

You may also consider asking the Administrators direct questions, in the hope that they have a professional duty to respond, eg "Did Cochran himself instigate Administration proceedings, or was it the other Directors?" or "Is there evidence that the Viaro deal was authorised properly within the Company?" or whatever one thinks is a clear, specific question that it would be good to ask.

Is there any authority who one can complain to regarding how Cochran has managed to disengage HALO from its investors by getting the company de-listed, yet still receiving his GBP 240k annual salary - and presumably expenses etc?? I realise since HALO is de-listed, so no longer on AIM, but surely this is such an obvious scam, ie delisting to avoid having to answer to shareholders yet still getting a salary, that the regulators would want to make sure this doesn't happen regularly? Is it worth making a complaint to the LSE or the Financial Ombudsman as per this website?
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/investments/stocks-shares

I suspect the accounting period has been extended as Cochran knows exactly what the status of the accounts is, and the fact he is not communicating to Shareholders suggests they are in terrible shape and he wants to continue to extract his salary/expenses for a little while longer before he is forced into bankruptcy and he has to repay debtors etc. The Donald Trump of the oil & gas world.

Yes, the TE / Barclays silence is disappointing. But I perhaps they are treated differently, and on a one-to-one basis, due to their terms of the deal which bought them in, especially if they provided cash / debt. In other words, the old adage of treating all shareholders equally (in terms of getting payments as well as basic information sharing / influence) may not apply due to the terms of the deal they did, elevating their position over us minority shareholders. For example, if HALO went bust, I suspect, but not sure, that TE/Barclays would get some of the liquidated funds before we did. Interested if others have any view on this and any insight or ideas as to why they are so silent.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Viaro sale up-front cash is quite small and the consideration is significantly weighted towards future milestone payments. This fits with what seems to be Cochran's personal objective, ie keep the company ticking along, not dead/sold, so he can drain it over a long period, ie continue to extract salary, expenses, perks for himself.

One could come to the conclusion that Cochran wants a vehicle to give him a disproportionate share of the benefits. He should be entitled to only c. 10% of the company (his shareholding), but he wants nearer 100%, and will happily take the time required to maximise his take. Cochran appears to be running HALO as his own fiefdom / cash cow.

I am actually more surprised by Camarco, HALO's Investor Relations people. Camarco has previously enjoyed a good reputation. However, on their watch, HALO has had a negligent lack of "investor relations" with the average shareholder. Surely Camarco must take some responsibility for this? Camarco may claim they have tried to provide some guidance to investors, but have been castrated by Cochran. If that is the case, they should resign. They can't continue as HALO's Investor Relations people with no communications with shareholders, unless they are happy to see their reputation get trashed. I wonder how many of us, with the experience we've had with HALO over the last year, would recommend any entity who is associated with HALO, especially on the communications side?

We should perhaps start thinking about what we want from the forthcoming AGM. To sit back and let Cochran continue to run HALO and continue to ignore shareholders seems the definition of insanity, repeating the same mistake again and again... We should perhaps consider demanding Cochran's departure from the Board. He seems to be not just out of his depth, but contemptuous towards (minority) shareholders.

Sure. You only need the 2019 and 2017 reports, as each has the previous 2 years of salaries.

2019 Annual Report : https://haloil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Halo-2019-annual-report-8.6.20.pdf
2017 Annual Report : https://haloil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Annual_report_2017.pdf

Just search for "remuneration" and you will find the salaries.

And yes, in 2019, Phelps and Valand received GBP 45,000 each. But less was spent on other directors in previous years, different every year. My numbers were only for Cochran, who obviously takes the lion's share. Debatable if the other directors will continue to take salaries in the future. I guess that depends on their relationship with Cochran.

Bottom line is that as long HALO cannot be sold or re-listed for more than about GBP 30 million, it seems Cochran is not really motivated to try to sell the company and instead will likely drain it down for salaries / expenses / perks - all while ignoring shareholders, the true owners of the company.

That's a great suggestion, ie Cochran to buy shares (giving us shareholders the pro-rata cash!) for previous salary payments
and take shares in lieu for salary in the future. I predict he would not do such an honourable thing. But it is a good suggestion to make (to him), to flush out the fact that he is indeed taking us for a ride. He would ignore it, which would just confirm my view of his character, or lack thereof. Snake oil salesmen at least give their chumps some oil.

Thanks for the response, I agree with your points, but I have lost all confidence in Cochran. I don't believe he has any intent whatsoever to allow shareholders to commercialise.

In the 2017 Annual Report the Chairman (Cochran) said "As part of the transaction the Company de-listed from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in September of 2017 in order to be able to complete the transaction in the timeliest and most cost-efficient manner. For the remainder of the year HALO was focused towards closing, then integrating the new portfolio into the Company as well as attending to all remaining post-transactional matters. HALO intends to re-list in 2018 when market conditions are deemed supportive and all requisite external reporting matters are completed." 2018 was a long, long time ago.

According to the Annual Reports, Cochran was paid GBP 224,733 in 2019, GBP 227,167 in 2018, and GBP 174,976 in 2017. I don't know what he has paid himself in 2020 yet, but assuming it's the same as previous years, that's over a million US dollars since the company de-listed.

So the company (which is owned by the shareholders) has given Cochran over a million dollars since de-listing, and precisely zero dollars to the shareholders who are unable to commercialise their shares.

Cochran has an 8.64% equity in the company. I think he has decided that selling the company / re-listing is not as attractive as simply continuing to drawdown a salary. In the former, he is giving away 91.36% of the company to us, the other shareholders. In the latter, he will probably give himself around a quarter of a million pounds every year, no questions asked (or at least no answers given!) for little work. If he continues to give himself that kind of salary until he is 60 (he is 51 now - only another 9 years away - he's done this for 4 years already), then he makes roughly as much cash from salary compared to commercialising his 8.64% equity assuming the company is worth around GBP 30 million today (and worth zero when he retires at 60). Anybody seriously believe HALO is worth GBP 30 million today? Obviously if he continues to give himself salary after age 60 (why not?) it makes the logic of NOT selling /re-listing even more compelling. - to Cochran.

Obviously this assumes there is always cash in the company. At the end of 2019 there was GBP 3.74 million. That would keep him in gravy until Cochran hits 65.

That's what I mean by a pension plan.

I hope I am wrong. But I struggle to have faith where there is no evidence to suggest that the faith is warranted.

"Contempt" is exactly the right word. Cochran is taking the investors for a ride. I suspect he knows he will never again attract investors after this debacle, so he is draining the company dry and has no interest in interacting with the suckers who donated to his personal pension plan.

Investors have not made any money, but we have a nice warm feeling that we have paid the salaries etc for Cochrane and his cronies.

People need to wake up and realise they have no intention to re-list, and never had. My prediction is they will either drain the company down or sell, with a sale structure that gives very little of the sale proceeds to the investors...

They will never re-list.

Quite sweet that someone still believes in the fantasy of a re-list

Personally am getting tired of the "best is yet to come" empty promises. Think they should have re-listed long ago and given the original investors their right to be able to decide whether to sell or continue to invest. Seems HALO management not interested in giving investors the right to make decisions themselves....

Don’t get me wrong, I think the deals that have been done are excellent. My point is simply I think it would be appreciated if shareholders were formally engaged, rather than someone decide they know what’s good for them. There appears to be very little governance in the company, and I assume the (not unreasonable) excuse is that the company is being managed on a skeleton crew, focusing on doing deals. That’s fine, I just question at what point shareholders will be properly engaged. Not a big deal, just making an observation about the lack of governance.

This gratuitous praise & fawning for AC is touching, but as a shareholder I would prefer to have my views tested as opposed to be told that the vote is pointless, as everyone supports Dear Leader. That kind of propaganda may work in North Korea or some other dictatorship, but I hardly think that is something HALO should aspire to. If it is so obvious that the Way Forward is a good idea – test it out and ask the shareholders. Let’s have some transparency in the company (am sure not all shareholders subscribe to this website; I certainly didn't until recently).

No, not being mischievous. And I do appreciate the insight regarding the re-listing requirements, thanks. You seem to understand my concerns. I guess at the moment the focus is simply on getting these good deals done and positioning the company for re-listing. At that point, when normal voting processes kick in, I guess HALO will put governance processes in place to address these kind of concerns in the future, ie when properly staffed up.